Drought Update

Happy Friday! The sky was putting on a show near my house in Middlebury, CT this morning. Here is an image of a beautiful sunrise and some cirrocumulus clouds.

 

I wanted to provide a quick update on the drought that persists here in New England. While not nearly as widespread and extreme as the drought in the western United States, the dry conditions here continue to escalate.

U.S. Drought Monitor (National Drought Mitigation Center)

The above map was released yesterday, and it shows that parts of New England are now in the "D2 Severe Drought" category. Parts of northeast Connecticut, eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire, and northern Maine are now experiencing a severe drought. Additionally, it is worth noting that all of New England is abnormally dry, except for a small section of southwest Connecticut and western Maine. For us, this means we can see some short term impacts, such as impacts on agriculture and grasslands.

What has caused these dry conditions? The answer is simply that it's been dry this year.

Rankings of observed total precip from May 20 to Aug 20 (Northeast Regional Climate Centers)

Take a good look at the above map, which shows the rankings of the observed total precipitation from the period from May 20 to August 20 at different stations in the Northeast. This means that any time you see a 1 on the above map, that weather station has had the driest May 20-August 20 on record. (A 2 would mean it is the second driest on record). Clearly, it has simply been dry this summer, which has led to the drought like conditions.

Hopefully we'll see some precipitation soon, since we definitely need it.